September 22, 2005

September 22 was declared Elephant Appreciation Day in 1996 by Mission Media, a graphics and publishing firm who got the day included in “Chase’s Calendar of Events.” Why bother celebrating elephants? Mission Media says elephants deserve a day of their own because they are the largest land mammal of our era and are undeservedly threatened with extinction.

Echo of the Elephants
For the past twenty-five years, Cynthia Moss has been studying elephant families in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. This PBS special follows Echo, the matriarch of an extended family of fifteen African elephants. Her clan consists of her own offspring, and other adult females with young calves. The fathers are loners, and do not travel with the clan until it’s time to mate. The page on Elephant Communication is fascinating. “They are a touchy-feely bunch: mothers gently trunk-slap youngsters to discipline them, infants beg for milk by touching a mother’s legs, and all entwine trunks in greeting.”

[Continue reading Elephants]

More Surfing the Calendar